Football

Opening Trivia Question: What do you call the girl throwing the ball in the picture? 

A) The Quarterback  B) The Pitcher  C) The Seeker  D) The Umpire  E) Jenny

(Photo by Edward Simpson)

Good evening, and welcome to Word Wednesday! Today we're going to talk about sports. To be honest, I'm not a very sporty guy. I like to do exercise and walk around and do stuff, but I just don't like watching sports on TV. It's really boring for me, although that's obviously a personal preference.

Every play in a football game is 4 "exciting" seconds of chaos followed by 5 minutes of commercials. (Photo by Ed Yourdon)

Nevertheless, a few of my students are going to do a presentation on "American Football" tomorrow, and I found myself in a position where I had to explain some of the concepts of the game to them. I was a little embarrassed that I actually know so much about the game, so please don't tell anyone!

First of all, in much of the world "football" is the sport where players kick the ball with their feet and try to get it into the goal. It has 90 minutes of excruciatingly boring play, frequently punctuated by players falling down and faking injuries like drama queens. For a few countries, though, that same sport is called "soccer." It's called "soccer" in the USA, of course, but the name "soccer" is also very common in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, since all of those countries have different sports that are referred to as "football."

In another half-second, all three of these players will be on the ground, holding different body parts, pretending to be in pain. This is the "thrill" of soccer. (Photo by Ingythewingy)

In the US, "football" is completely different. In Costa Rica and Latin America, at least, it's called "American Football," although they also say "we're all Americans," so something doesn't quite compute. But that's OK. A football game in the US has 60 minutes of excruciatingly boring play, but a game somehow takes about 4 hours to finish since the play is constantly interrupted by commercial breaks. It's really quite intolerable. The players also wear a lot more padding and equipment than in soccer. To play football without getting killed you should wear a helmet, shoulder pads, wrist tape, a mouth guard, knee braces, thigh pads, a jock strap and shoes with cleats. 

Some people say that football is better than soccer because football has beautiful cheerleaders. I'll admit it: these women are more attractive than me and better dancers, too. However, if you need to look at beautiful women to distract you from the sport you're supposed to be watching, then I'm sorry, but your sport is boring. (Photo by Keith Allison)

Here's some "cheerleader math" for you: The average cost of a ticket to a professional football game is almost $77, and some are even over $100--and that's the average cost. Parking can cost around $20, hot dogs can cost $6 or $7 a piece, a pop or beer is about $8, and in the end, you may not even see a cheerleader if it's snowing. However, the price of a copyright-free picture of a beautiful cheerleader is exactly $0.00 on the internet. So which is a better deal? (Photo by Keith Allison)

On the other hand, if you want to play soccer you just need some shoes, but even that is probably optional if they get stolen or you forget them on the bus. In soccer, players try to kick a ball into a goal. There are more rules, but that's the main idea of the game. It's pretty simple.

The main idea of football is... well, it's a lot more complicated than almost any sport except cricket, chess, or assembling furniture. I think it's (much) better if I let Burt Reynolds explain it to you:

So, did you get that? Hopefully so. It's cheesy but kind of funny. I really liked this video, mainly because it had Burt Reynolds, but also because of the amazing music and breathtaking fashion trends.

Ugghhh, here we go again: a soccer player fakes an injury to interrupt Sitzman ABC. The clock is still running, but don't get your hopes up: The worst part about soccer injuries (besides the pain the players suffer) is that the referees add extra time on the clock at the end of the game to make up for the lost time treating the injury. (Photo by ecmorgan)

So which is "better": soccer or football? It's very hard to decide. In both sports grown adults run around in the grass for a few hours and get paid more money in an hour than I'll earn in my life. Both sports are really boring unless you are drunk or have a very loose definition of the word "entertainment." Football's advantage is that it has cheerleaders and Burt Reynolds supporting it, but soccer's advantage is that the games end more quickly, giving you more time to do something more interesting and productive than reading a sport. In the end the score is zero to zero, so I'll have to call it a tie!

And that's it for today. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment, either in the comment form below, or by calling Burt Reynolds directly.

Thanks for reading, and have a great night!

Sarcasm, Irony, and the Importance of Tone

Hello, and happy Fun Friday! The other day I was looking for English videos on the internet and I came across this video from the program The Kids in the Hall. Watch it and note how important tone can be in speaking a language (by the way, they use the word "mingle" a few times; "to mingle" means to go talk to different people informally in a social situation):

I think this video is great because it shows how important tone can be in a conversation. When we speak directly with someone, it's much easier to understand the tone of what he or she is saying (in other words, if we can't hear how a person says something, it's hard to know if he or she is being sincere, joking, or even sarcastic). On the other hand, if we read something, the tone is often unclear, which is why it can be difficult and problematic for beginning students to communicate with text messages, email, or instant messages.

I think this may be a problem in some of my classes, at least in lower levels, since I often like to joke around with my students and use sarcasm, but I'm not sure if they understand that I'm joking sometimes. I think the tone of what I say is often lost in translation.

Anyhow, it's something to think about over the weekend. I hope you have a great one, and we'll see you again on Monday! Thanks for reading!

Fun Friday: "Big Me"

Since we were talking about "big" words on Monday and Wednesday of this week, I thought I'd put up a video of a "big" song today for Fun Friday.

The song is called "Big Me," by the Foo Fighters. The lyrics aren't very complex, but I really like the video. The video is a parody that makes fun of a series of 1990s commercials for Mentos mints. You can see some examples of the original commercials here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but be careful! If you watch them more than one time, you may actually become stupider!

Anyhow, this Foo Fighters video captures the essence of the commercials. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

P.S. - Thanks to my brother Paul for the song suggestion!

Fun Friday: Stomachs and Bellies

As you may know, I'm taking a Chinese class here in Costa Rica, so I've been following a blog about Chinese culture and language. There was a funny and interesting article yesterday about men in China who expose their bellies (stomachs) when it's hot. The post included the picture to the right, which I'll include in case you don't understand what I'm talking about.

Anyhow, the Chinese phrase for this action is "bǎngyé," which means "exposing grandfathers." If you want to read more, the article really is interesting, so check it out. Also, it got me thinking, since lots of men here in Costa Rica also roll up their shirts and stick out their bellies when it's hot. I think it's pretty funny, since it's usually men with gigantic bellies who do this. So, all of this inspired me to talk about a few vocabulary words and phrases related to stomach and bellies.

IMPORTANT BELLY/STOMACH VOCABULARY

First of all, stomach is another general word for the area between your chest and your waist. "Stomach" can also refer to your main digestive organ. If you feel pain because of indigestion, you can say that you have a stomachache or that your stomach hurts.

The words "tummy" and "belly" often refer to the outside part of your stomach, but sometimes they can refer to the digestive organ (these words are especially common when talking about or with children). For example, a child may say, "Dad/Mom, my tummy/belly hurts."

Belly dancing is a type of dance that's popular in some parts of the world. (Image)

Another word to describe your stomach area is "gut" or "guts," but this can also be used to refer to the inner organs in general. If you remove the inner organs from a fish, for example, you "gut it." You can also use the word gut in some idiomatic expressions; for example, if someone has a suspicion about something, he or she can say she has a "gut feeling." Also, if someone is brave (courageous), you can say that he or she "has a lot of guts" or that they are "gutsy."

A diagram of a human's inner organs or "guts." (Image)

If you're talking about the muscles in that part of the body, they're generally called the abdominal muscles or simply the "abs." A common exercise to tone the abdominal muscles is called "sit-ups." When people do a lot of these exercises, they get very strong abs, and you can say that he or she "has a 6-pack," since the muscles look like a 6-pack of beer or pop cans.

A group of students doing sit-ups to tone their abs. (Image)

Pretty soon, the girls doing sit-ups will have 6-pack abs like this guy. (Image)

Finally, when a woman is pregnant, her baby has an umbilical cord, which is a cord that provides nutrients from the mother to the growing baby. After the baby is born, the umbilical cord is cut, and later a little "hole" is formed in a person's stomach. That's called a "belly button," although the more "scientific" term is a "navel."

A woman with a pierced belly button. (Image)

So, to review, can you explain what each of these words means? 

Can you use them in sentences?

SELECTED BODY PARTS:

-Stomach

-Chest

-Waist

-Tummy

-Belly

-Abs

-Belly Botton

OTHER VOCABULARY:

-Gut(s)

-Gut Feeling

-Have Guts

-Gutsy

-Sit-ups

-6-pack

-To Tone

-Umbilical Cord

-To Be Born

If you read this far, here is your "secret bonus":

I'm not sure if this video is supposed to be funny, but it definitely made me laugh!

Thanks for reading --have a great weekend, free of bellyaches!

Good Comic

A few weeks ago we were looking at different loanwords in English, and one thing that many loanwords had in common is that they describe foods. We didn't look specifically at Italian loanwords in English, but when I saw this Bizarro comic the other day, I thought it was funny and I wanted to share it:

You can find more comics and a blog by Bizarro's author/creator here. Thanks for reading, and have a nice weekend!